Editor’s note: The approval of this legislation by the student body would financially benefit the Daily Lobo. The editorial board neither supports nor opposes a student government fee raise.
SUB — The undergraduate student government pushed through a $5 fee raise Wednesday that was identical to the proposal students failed at the ballot box just hours before.
The fee raise, which would increase the Associated Students of the University of New Mexico $20 fee by $5, will appear on the April ballot for the senatorial elections.
While a majority of undergraduates (56%) supported a 25% undergraduate government fee increase, the referendum did not clear the two-thirds majority required to raise the fee in the three-day election.
The second fee raise referendum comes as ASUNM struggles to fund itself and over 400 student organizations. ASUNM has about $188,000 less than it did five years ago.
ASUNM receives its funding essentially through a $20 tax on each undergraduate. When enrollment declined, so did its funding.
"I think that we should pass it through," Senator Trevor Maus said. "And if (students) vote it down again, we pass it again in the fall, and if they vote it down again we will pass it through in the spring and eventually they'll vote it through."
Maus said it was ASUNM's responsibility to keep putting the fee raise up for a vote, no matter how many times students voted it down. For at least the next election, the Senate agreed.
After the first referendum failed, it wasn't at all certain that the second referendum would be put on the ballot.
When the debate started, Senator Michel Rivera opposed the legislation. Although he recognized the difficult position, Rivera said more outreach wouldn't be enough to push the bill over the two-thirds hurdle it requires.
"And this is coming from someone who supported this bill," Rivera said.
Senator Matthew Zank spoke next.
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"I feel like the biggest issue within ASUNM is that we've shot ourselves in the foot by allowing big decisions like this to go before the student body," Zank said.
Zank, the vice-chair of ASUNM's Steering and Rules Committee, said he believed the student body wasn't willing to listen.
"I don't honestly trust the student body to make decisions like this," Zank said, triggering about half the Senate to request time to speak.
Ultimately, the debate came down to if ASUNM had the energy to do an additional outreach push and if students in the Senate elections — which typically see lower turnout — would feel offended by the second attempt.
"I keep hearing more outreach, but I keep feeling like there's been plenty of outreach opportunities," Outreach and Appointments Committee Chair Suha Musa said.
Ultimately three speeches, especially from Senators Briana Flores and Ricardo Hill, turned the tide.
"I understand how much it hurts," Flores said, addressing the Senate while standing. "The thing is, a lot of students didn't understand what (was) going on, and they were given a lot of misinformation."
Flores said that while she was campaigning, a lot of students told her they thought the fee raise was an extra $25, instead of $5. She said although students weren't given the right information about the fee raise, ASUNM had to keep trying.
Flores said ASUNM should retarget their outreach efforts from student organizations to commuter students.
Those speeches were enough to convince senators on the fence like Rivera. The second referendum passed with 17 for, 2 against and 1 abstention.
Senator Ilan Jaffe was one of two votes against the second referendum. He reject the idea that misinformation was deliberately spread as a part of the outreach effort.
"I'm trying to explain to people who it doesn't benefit why it doesn’t benefit them," Jaffe said.
Like other senators, Jaffe said he believed commuter students were the ones who failed the bill.
"Those are the fifty percent of undergraduates that don't attend Fiestas," he said. "Those are the people who are voting because that's how they feel."
The other vote against was Musa, who led the outreach effort for the first bill.
She said the original referendum's outreach effort was enough — if the bill was going to pass, it would have passed. She said that ASUNM's outreach efforts would be better served elsewhere at this point in the semester.
Justin Garcia is the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at editorinchief@dailylobo.com or on Twitter at @Just516garc
